LITR 4332 American Minority Literature

Lecture notes

conclude The Bluest Eye (pp. 95-206 ("Spring" and "Summer") + Morrison's 1993 Afterword, 209-216 .

Carolee Osborne, reading discussion

Discussion Outline

1.       Questions

2.       Themes

A.      How can we compare and contrast the American dream and the dream? pg 127

B.      Are there any other themes that you noticed? Assimilation pg 118, Color pg 115 repeating the same color imagry

3.       Conclusion

Great Migration

111 African American northward migration

116 cf. Underground Railroad

What do with mixed-race characters like Maureen Peal?

62 a high-yellow dream child

67 mulatto girl . . . black and ugly

75 Maureen not the enemy . . . The Thing

167-8 Soaphead; mixed blood + academic achievement

69 I differed

87 line b/w colored and n

92 black bitch x pretty milk-brown lady

Blues? > double language

104 laughter at once beautiful and frightening

114 laughter belies anxiety

159 coherent only in the head of a musician

205 all the waste and beauty of the world

Dream

39 dreams of affluence and vengeance into the anonymous misery of their storefront

62 a high-yellow dream child

69 Dreamland Theater

103 big white house with wheelbarrow full of flowers

105 Black people were not allowed in the park, and so it filled our dreams . . . white house

107 white, white, polished + 127 porcelain tub, silvery taps

113 dreams disintegrated

129 old dreaminess

142 house belongs to some white folks

149 dreams, figures, premonitions

165 Interpreter of Dreams

172 dreamless sleeps, what this dream means

colors

105 This sky was always blue

112 that streak of green

115 bits of color

131 little bits of color, rainbow all inside

128 the ideal servant

136 M'Dear as shaman, folk healer, cf. Sandy

+ juxtapose father as god, previous page

Morrison challenges "the color code" with "the Black Aesthetic"

113 dark sweetness

124 black ball of hair

126 ugly

133 soft black Georgia sky [God's mercy is dark]

134 God was a nice old white man > the devil?

138 African violets

141 black thread

145 dark juice

157 elderberry

174 a little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes

190 baby in a dark wet place

same, different, other

138 the difference was all the difference there was

147 the other

160 sameness, others

191 all speech a code to be broken

205 so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her

> difference

97 change in whipping style. They beat us differently in the spring.

nervous meanness in the long twigs

"Even now" (child's / adult's viewpoint)

98 the way Mama did (imitation as learning)

99 cross tracks

100 [surprise] threw tricycle + singing

101 I might be ruined

101 child dialogue > whiskey > Pecola

103 maginot Line = Frieda in future

103 big white house

104 tossed bottle

laughter beautiful and frightening

105 streets changed . . . no sign of life

blue Lake . . . sky always blue

empty . . . expectant of clean, white, well-behaved children

Black people not allowed > filled our dreams

large white house

106 calculated disorder, cunning symmetry

Maginot Line > Miss Marie

Pecola is sweet

107 She says she's bad, but they ain't bad

108 little girl, corn yellow, fear--familiar violence

110 her foot > deformity explained

Alabama

111 never felt at home; separateness and unworthiness

arrange things, size, gradations of color

x-paints and crayons

beginniing WW1 (great migration)

> immigration

112 streak of green, june bugs

once-white fence

113 strangers appear out of nowhere to hold hand

dreams grow, dreams disintegrated

dark sweetness

114 [Cholly] came big, strong, yellow eyes, own music, whistling, city-street music

115 Colly--all bits of color, purple, yellowish, green, all come together

116 touch as she had dreamed

steel mills begging for workers

Oberlin, Underground railroad station

117 melting pot on lip of America facing Canada

x-used to so much white folks

Northern colored folk different

dicty (n) A black person regarded as snobbish, pretentious, self-important, or ‘stuck-up’.

x-cat to talk to

118 x-straighten hair

118 [shift of storytelling mode]

119 whole family simpleminded

couldn't like her

x-wipe behinds, pee proper

120 Nasty white folks

stay if I left him

121 $11 x only thinking of you

122 succumbed to her earlier dreams

romantic love + physical beauty = virtue

love as possessive mating

education in the movies

making a magnificent whole (mimesis)

123 everything be black

white men taking such good care of they women

Jean Harlow > tooth gone: Everything went then

124 a black ball of hair

Doctor dehumanizes

125 x-speech; cf. white women

+ id. with horse

126 right smart baby . . . ugly

no time for dreams and movies

Ladies Circle

chil'ren > children (assimilation, imitation)

127 ideal servant

[plumbing]

beauty, order, cleanliness and praise

real estate

128 nickname Polly

taught them fear

128 old dreaminess

130 women's orgasm

131 bits of color = laughing

rainbow all inside

132 Cholly abandoned > Great Aunt Jimmy

asafetida bag

133 just as well to have died there

his father? That Samson Fuller boy > Macon

drayman (= carter)

Emancipation Proclamation

ghost stories

134 x-lynched

Cholly loved Blue

July 4 church picnic

a melon bigger than the sun

if God looked like that? > a nice old white man, white beard + blue eyes

If the devil did look like that, Cholly preferred him

strong, black devil

135 you and me eat the heart

nasty-sweet guts of the earth

died of peach cobbler

136 Chew on this root

M'Dear

over 6 feet tall

hickory stick x-support > communication

preacher accompanied

137 nostalgia about pain

138 Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders except black children and each other

re-created it in their own image

ran houses of white people

When white men beat their men, they cleaned up the blood and went home to receive abus from the victim

African violets

the difference all all the difference there was

139 old . . . walk unmolested

at last, free

puree of tragedy and humor

Cholly's dream: penis > hickory stick, caressed by M'Dear

140 Cholly at funeral

141 wanting black thread = sign

142 house belongs to white folks in Clarksville

insurance $85

paying on that insurance all her life

143 beauty of the funeral, street tragedy

banquet = join in termination of misery

144 Jake & suky

145 mating dance

muscadine, dark juice

146 green and purple grass

147 two white men; could smell it

148 gun

violence born of total helplessness

He hated her.

149 dreams, figures, premonitions

150 tooth

x-hatred for hunters > Darlene (witness)

151 lonely better than alone

had to get away

run out on pregnant girl; cf. father

> find his own father

152 meal bag treasure = $23

153 insults cf. lice

154 men clustered like grapes; man smell

green

155 at the end of his journey

his father, a man like any other man

155-6 his mother's name?

156 fresh from vine, red as wine

157 soiled himself like a baby

fetal position, only darkness and heat

evening, dark, warmth, quiet; cf. elderberry seed

158 memory of Aunt Jimmy

three women

inside, dark and warm

159 pieces of life coherent < music [mimesis]

already killed three white men

160 truly free, nothing more to lose

godlike state, met Pauline Williams

cf. flashlight: sameness

nest with her

only drink = break, floodlight

disfunctional children--never watched parent (mimesis)

161 reached to them, based on what he felt at moment

How dare she love him?

162 quiet and pitiful gesture

a wondering softness; tenderness, protectiveness

nibbled at back of her leg

a wild and forbidden thing

162-3 wanted to fuck  her--tenderly

163 hatred + tenderness

164 misanthrope: loved things, not people

165 Interpreter of Dreams

craving for things humans had touched

166 bodies had sweated, slept, dreamed

personality an arabesque

+ rare but keen sexual cravings

homosexual but lacked courage

x-sustained erections

abhorred flesh on flesh > children > little girls

167 cinnamon-eyed West Indian with lightly browned skin

alternative name: Soaphead Church (Elihue Micah Whitcomb)

167 family: academic accomplishments and mixed blood

mulatto bastard, 300 pounds sterling, hoarding of white strain

separate herself in body, mind, and spirit from all that suggested Africa

168 Anglophilia, married up, lightening the family complexion & thinning out the family features

de Gobineau's hypothesis that "all civilizations derive from the white race . .  ."

medicine, law, theology > powerless government offices

[incest] > eccentricity < intermarriage within family, not original genes of the decaying lord

169 self-deception

x-disorder or decay

170 life to counter nonlife

left island > America

171 Lorain

white collar occupations available to black people

old dog, Bob

poison

172 dreamless sleeps

His business was dread.

Tell me what this dream means.

imperfect universe

173 God had done a poor job

173 a little girl, pitifully unattractive

tummy

174 can't go to school any more

my eyes. I want them blue.

an ugly little girl asking for beauty

surge of love and understanding

A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes

175 some contact with nature

butcher's paper, brown bottle

If . . . your wish will be granted

compassion

176 bottle of ink, same shelf as poison

Dear God:

lived greenly

177 Greater Antilles

white masters' characteristics, their worst

not royal but snobbish

education - school

manhood = acquisitions, womanhood acquiescence

178 hotel room

breasts of little girls

179 the buds

A Thing To Do Instead

greentime

180 a comfortable evil

How could you leave a lass so long so lone that she could find her way to me?

181 the white laughter of little girls and me

You forgot how and when to be God.

But I gave her those blue eyes she wanted.

182 I played You.

No one else will see her blue eyes. But she will. And she will live happily ever after.

183 an ivory sleep.

SUMMER

187 Lorain

I mix up her summer with my own

strong, smiling and relaxed while the world falls down

188 Moirai = Greek fates

our seeds > new bicycle

piece a story together, a secret, terrible, awful story . . . about Pecola

189 He taken off

Don't seem to have no people.

She carry some of the blame

mama beat her

ugliest thing walking

190 better off inthe ground

our sorrow . . . nobody seemed to share it

190 the baby that everybody wanted dead

dark, wet place

2 clean black eyes

no synthetic yellow bangs

counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples, and Maureen Peals

191 overwhelming hatred for the unborn baby

frozen doll baby

we just knew

all speech a code to be broken, gesures careful analysis

people gave us orders b/c bigger and stronger

let's make it a miracle

192 give up the bicycle

sing; magic words

193 Mr. Soaphead said they would last forever.

194 really, truly, bluely nice

You are crazy.

195 ever since I got my blue eyes, she look away from me all the time

196 why didn't I know you before?

Do you like Maureen? Oh. She's all right. For a half-white girl

197 They're just prejudiced . . . blue eyes, bluer than theirs

198 she probably loved him anyway

They just make you

199 He just tried

199 when I was washing dishes

200 the second time . .  . on the couch

No use telling her when she wouldn't believe you.

I understand now. Just about.

201 horrible

Alice-and-Jerry Storybook eyes?

203 the bluest eyes in the whole world

suppose my eyes aren't blue enough?

for what? . . . I don't know

204 a little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl

The damage done was total

a bird futile to fly, blue void

we had failed her

205 our flowers never grew

all the waste and beauty of the world (mimesis)

we cleaned oursellves on her

fantasy--not good, but well behaved

206 madness

his touch was fatal

Love is never better than the lover.

The fault of the earth, the land, of our town.

Afterword

209 the first time I knew beautiful

210 racial self-loathing

reclamation of racial beauty int he 60s

internalization < outside gaze

demonization of entire race > a child, female

a unique situation, not representative

woundability in all young girls

211 x-dehumanize characters who trashed Pecola

pity > interrogation

break narrative into parts, reassembled by reader

touched but not moved

struggle for writing indisputably black

race-specific yet race-free prose

212 conspiracy

speaks a particular world

213 secret > pollution

point of view of a child alters priority

reader protected from confrontation too soon > desire

215 Pecola's unbeing

female expressiveness